Monday, January 30, 2012

survival: turning oppression into energy

Survival is tough. We don’t give evolution enough credit. Out
of all the creatures to have ever been, those that are present now made it
through a lot. Those still around are the ones that had the strength to survive
their environments; they adapted. I think this is a perfect trope for queer folk;
it’s certainly how i see myself.

Queer life can be tough. Our society is fiercely
normalizing. Our culture works very hard, and is fairly successful, at
rendering us invisible and irrelevant. We’re denied jobs, housing, healthcare,
affirmation, etc. And we experience a very high degree of violence as a
demographic. Despite all that, we’re still here.

The fact that my queer body is still breathing means that i
haven’t given in to all the pressures to conform or die. Despite how frequently
each of those options seem easier than living the inherent difficulties of my
life, i’ve refused to give up. i want to be proof that no matter how vicious
our society, it is possible to both self-determine and survive.

This sometimes means utilizing strategies that aren’t
necessarily socially acceptable. Over the course of my life this has meant a
lot of things. It’s meant adopting a punk-inspired, no fucks given, attitude.
It’s meant accepting the fluidity of my own identity, because boxes seem to
suffocate. It’s meant strategies of dissociation: drugs, alcohol, and
melancholy music. Its meant damage control: smoking, and controlled self-harm.
It’s meant limiting time in more dangerous places and rarely leaving urban
areas. It’s meant finding strategies of self-care: reaching out for support,
cultivating compassion, meditation, crafting, and writing.

These strategies, and their varying degrees of health, are
all responsible for the fact that i’m still here. Each one has meant that i’ve
stayed on this earth. This is something i actively choose to believe has value.
This is not out of any sense of arrogance, but i feel like there is still work
to be done. This world still needs to be made more safe, more compassionate,
more accepting of fluidity and variance. This is work that i’m driven to do;
and i do this both actively and by simply existing as visibly queer.

This realization has led to the
need, and the capacity, to turn oppression into energy. To me, this means
creating things to shift our society in the general direction of compassion and
understanding. My most frequent method to do this is writing. This may sound
obvious, but i believe that writing about experience, especially non-normative
experience, carries a value in that it can open folks to broader levels of
understanding.

But it also means fighting to
make spaces safer. Fighting may seem incongruent with compassion,
but i’d operationalize the term in a very non-violent way. When i fight i seek to make spaces that i inhabit more inhabitable. Whether
this means checking people’s assumptions in dynamic, and hopefully effective
ways, or something more callous, there is a constancy of confrontation. i use
this word despite its connotation. By confrontation, i mean looking a situation
in its eyes, recognizing difficulty, and choosing to engage in a way that is
positive.

Each time i encounter something
negative, i try to find a way to leave a trace or ripple of change. Frequently,
for me, this means shouting at folks who harass. In these moments i hold no
illusions that compassion will change minds, i simply hope to foster an
environment where folks recognize that the things they say will not always go
unheeded and unchallenged. Often though, this requires more tact and
discipline.

When assumptions or statements
are more tacitly problematic (read: subtler forms of racism, trans-misogyny,
ableism, body image standards, etc.) i coax from myself a more dynamic and
gentle form of fierceness. In these moments i strive to not put folks on the
defensive, allowing myself to take small steps of growth with someone. These
processes are often more frustrating for me, especially in my longer term
relationships with folk. i want them to instantly “get it,” but recognize that
change and growth are inherently slow processes that require commitment and
cultivation.

This is something i’ve been
consciously engaging with in my own life for longer than i’d like to admit, and
lord knows i’m still not perfect. So i try to breathe, and do the patient work
of consciousness raising, all the while treating every moment as an opportunity
for both activism and personal growth.

Turning my oppression into energy
also means that i try to push the radical and queer circles i’m in as well. Our
work and our interactions operate multi-laterally as a challenge to hegemony
and power, and to be the most effective in that process need to be conscious
and engaged. In this regard, i’m as committed to challenging folks who are
on-point as much as i am folks who aren’t.

It means taking in moments and
using them to reveal gaps in our culture and coming up with creative ways to
fill those gaps. Currently, for me, this means working with and challenging
institutions that are semi-inclusive, or inclusive in name but not so much in
practice. It also means slowly building longer term projects that will
hopefully work to shift consciousness and foster openness on a
more-than-individualized scale.

This work seems valuable. i hope
to look back on this strategy and feel that i haven’t wasted my time and my
energy. i hope that transforming my oppression into energy is as fruitful as it
feels. At the very least though, it helps me to survive the tougher moments in
my life, and that, in itself, has immeasurable value.